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In this episode of the Digital Publishing Podcast (which you can find a full transcript of below), I talk about the so-called perfect writing device, distraction-free writing software, and more.
You can also listen to the episode online by clicking the play button on the player below this. (If you don’t see the player, click here.) It’s about 24 minutes long.
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The Perfect Writing Device and Distraction-Free Writing Software [DPP053]
This is episode 53 of the Digital Publishing Podcast, a podcast about ebooks, blogs, podcasts, social media, and other forms of digital publishing. My name is Tristan Higbee, recording again today in Kathmandu, Nepal. (And I'll repeat my disclaimer from last time by saying that this is a noisy city, so I apologize if you hear dogs or car horns or people shouting in the background.)
This podcast is brought to you by my site Osmosio.com, where you can learn about the ins and outs of ebook formatting and get a bunch of nonfiction ebook ideas for any niche, among other things.
Ok, I’ve got 5 topics to talk about today, so let’s get started. Topic number one is…
1. The perfect writing device
Right now there is a Kickstarter project going on for something called the Hemingwrite. It's essentially a digital typewriter with an e-ink screen. It has big keys with a lot of travel. It has a 6" screen above the keyboard. It will apparently last for a month on a single charge of its batteries. It has a little carrying handle on it so you can, I don't know, I guess easily carry it to and from the coffee shop. And it has WiFi built in, so it can sync and back up your data to the cloud. The machine syncs with Postbox, which you can then set up to sync with Google Drive, Dropbox, Evernote, and other cloud services. The early bird backers on Kickstarter could get one of these for around $350, but now they're going for $399 each.
The Hemingwrite bills itself as "The Distraction Free Digital Typewriter" and "The Kindle of writing composition." There's a section on the Kickstarter page with the header "Why?", and under that it says:"Laptops and iPads are multi-purpose devices loaded with games, social media, work email, funny cat videos, and those birthday photos you still need to edit. Like many of you, when we tried to get down to writing